Habitat selection by yellowhammers Emberiza citrinella on lowland farmland at two spatial scales: implications for conservation management

1. Yellowhammer Emberiza citrinella populations have declined rapidly in the UK over recent decades, and a clear understanding of their habitat requirements is important to help inform conservation schemes. We aimed to disentangle and rank the effects of winter versus breeding season habitat characteristics. 2. We used information theoretic methods to analyse the factors determining yellowhammer distribution across 26 sites in England and Wales. We did this at two spatial levels: individual field boundaries and individual territories, the latter consisting of spatial clusters of boundaries. 3. We considered the role of nine predictor variables, all of which have been suggested in the literature as potentially important. These comprised boundary height and width, and the presence of hedges, trees, ditches, boundary strips, tillage crops, winter set-aside and winter stubbles. 4. The results of the statistical modelling showed that winter habitats play an important role in determining where birds locate territories in summer. In particular, the presence of rotational set-aside fields in winter showed the strongest association with summer territories. 5. There were minor differences between the territory- and boundary-based models. Most notably, the territory data demonstrated a strong preference for territories containing trees, but this was not observed in the boundary data set. We suggest that the differences between the models may reflect different scales of habitat selection. Boundary occupancy reflects broad distributions of habitat suitability; territory occupancy patterns better reveal detailed habitat requirements. 6. Regional densities were more closely correlated with the predictions of the boundary-based model than those of the territory-based model, and we discuss the implications of this for interpreting habitat association models. 7. Synthesis and applications. Provision of winter set-aside fields for summer territory selection by yellowhammers is an important consideration for farm management where conservation is a priority. We show that models based on occupancy of individual boundary units (e.g. hedgerows) correlate with the density of territories at the farm scale; thus farm management practices link directly to population sizes through effects on the quality of breeding habitat.